(1996). Statelessness: The making and unmaking of political identity. The European Legacy: Vol. 1, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the study of European Ideas, pp. 820-825.

In Republican Guard , Nicholas Xenos describes the Straussian network and its nature, focusing upon delineating what in Leo Strauss’ writings has influenced and can tell us about the ‘character of American power today and the rhetoric through which it is enhanced and sustained.’ In the end he argues and demonstrates that Strauss’ political theory provides the means by which an imperial project can be camouflaged under the cloak of an appeal to liberal democracy. This book will be (...) of interest to students and scholars of politics and international relations. (shrink)

Recent attempts to distinguish a normatively acceptable “civic nationalism"—as distinct from an irrationally tainted “ethnic nationalism"—have failed to take seriously the implications of the transition from the city as the immediate spatial unit of the patria to the more abstract national state that replaced it. The nation‐state has required a mythologizing naturalism to legitimate it, thus blurring the distinction between “civic” and “ethnic.” The urban political experience of the patria is lost to us; cosmopolitan intellectuals should resist the comforting temptation (...) to recover it in the nation, and should recognize civic nationalism for the oxymoron it is. (shrink)

(1996). Statelessness: The making and unmaking of political identity. The European Legacy: Vol. 1, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the study of European Ideas, pp. 820-825.

The tradition of republican patriotism articulated by Maurizio Viroli only seems to avoid the naturalizing dangers inherent in the discourse of nationalism, whether in its so‐called civic or ethnic modes. Rousseau's comment that he wishes the patrie to be experienced as “la mere commune des citoyens” reflects the republican patriot's desire to find a home in the patria. This sentiment originated in Rome and comes down to us primarily in texts written in the immediate aftermath of the Republic's demise, a (...) period characterized by widespread physical uprooting. The sentiment of republican patriotism can thus be seen as a nostalgic reaction to a sense of personal and political deracination and loss. In their yearning for a political home, at least, republican patriots like Rousseau share the rhetoric and desire of nationalists, and that similarity should cause us concern. (shrink)

This paper addresses two ways in which scarcity in health care turns up and three ways in which this dual condition of scarcity can be approached. The first approach is the economic approach, which focuses on the causes of cost-increase in health care and on developing various mechanisms of rationing and priority-setting in health care. The second approach is the justice approach, which interprets scarcity as one of the Humean ‹Circumstances of Justice.’ Whereas these approaches interpret scarcity as a given (...) fact, the third approach casts doubt on this interpretation. Rather, it interprets scarcity as a social, anthropological, and technologically induced construction of Modernity. This paper supports the theories of Hans Achterhuis, Ivan Illich, and Nicholas Xenos but also further elaborates their views with regard to health care by offering an approach to scarcity that interprets it as an economic translation of finitude. I argue that this approach, which entails a contemporary revaluation of the ancient Socratic attitude on human life and finitude, will be better able to deal with the pressing contemporary issues of setting limits on health care because it mitigates contemporary health care’s tendency toward infinity in meeting – and creating – health care needs. (shrink)

What is possible and why? What is the difference between the merely possible and the actual? In Kants Modal Metaphysics Nicholas Stang examines Kants lifelong engagement with these questions and their role in his philosophical development. This is the first book to trace Kants theory of possibility all theway from the so-called pre-Critical writings of the 1750s and 1760s to the Critical system of philosophy inaugurated by the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. Stang argues that the key to (...) understanding both the change and the continuity between Kants pre-Critical and Critical theory of possibility is his transformation of the ontological question about possibility-what is it for a being to be possible?-into a question in transcendental philosophy-what is it to represent an object as possible? (shrink)

The success of a piece of behaviour is often explained by its being caused by a true representation (similarly, failure falsity). In some simple organisms, success is just survival and reproduction. Scientists explain why a piece of behaviour helped the organism to survive and reproduce by adverting to the behaviour’s having been caused by a true representation. That usage should, if possible, be vindicated by an adequate naturalistic theory of content. Teleosemantics cannot do so, when it is applied to simple (...) representing systems (Godfrey-Smith 1996). Here it is argued that the teleosemantic approach to content should therefore be modified, not abandoned, at least for simple representing systems. The new ‘infotel-semantics’ adds an input condition to the output condition offered by teleosemantics, recognising that it is constitutive of content in a simple representing system that the tokening of a representation should correlate probabilistically with the obtaining of its specific evolutionary success condition. (shrink)

This essay proposes a bifurcation within the concept of moderation in early modern Europe. To draw this out it reconstructs an “encounter” between two citizens of the scholarly Republic of Letters in the years around 1700—Lodovico Antonio Muratori and Jean Le Clerc—and the concept of moderation each maintained. It proposes that the former maintained an ideal of moderation which was “hard” principally about self-regulation, while the latter maintained an ideal of moderation which was “soft” and principally about (religious) toleration. It (...) then attaches this “encounter” to an analogous conflict between uses of moderation in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England. It concludes by proposing that this bifurcation, while occurring within scholarly and theological debates, has enduring significance for our interpretation of the Enlightenment, and for the passage of political moderation into the modern world. (shrink)

A study in philosophical methodology aimed at providing a clear view of the scope and limits of philosophical inquiry.

In Portraits of American Philosophy, eight of America's most prominent philosophers offer autobiographical narratives that remind us that the life of a scholar is both a tale of personal struggle and an adventure in ideas.

In my response to Kevin Carnahan, I explain the concept of religion that I have been working with in my writings on the place of religious reasons in public political discourse. While acknowledging that religion is often privatized, my concern has been with religion as a way of life. It is religion so understood that raises the most serious issues concerning the role of religion in public discourse. In my response to Erik A. Anderson, I go beyond what I have (...) previously said about the role of religious reasons in public discourse. As an alternative to Rawlsian public reason, I argue that the essence of liberal democracy is that every citizen is to have equal political voice. I go on to consider what it is to exercise one’s equal political voice as a moral engagement. (shrink)

This article is a response to the commentaries on my book Justice: Rights and Wrongs in the previous contributions in this issue of Studies in Christian Ethics (23.2).

Abstractabstract:In the field of interreligious dialogue, it is sometimes easier to find points of contact between the practical aspects of the major faith traditions, rather than focus on matters of philosophy or theology. This essay explores the possible commonality between monastic/religious life in Christianity and Buddhism as described in the foundation documents of the Franciscan and Theravāda traditions. The particular focus will be the virtue (or vice, depending on one's perspective) of obedience. In Christian monastic tradition a common summary of (...) the commitments made by a "religious," that is, a monk or nun, brother or sister, is the triple vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience (Latin: paupertas, castitas, and obedientia). These values are strongly represented in all Christian monastic rules. They were explicitly cited in the Rules of Saint Francis of Assisi (1182–1226). The question explored here is whether the practice of obedience as delineated in the Later Rule (the Regula Bullata, 1223) of St. Francis has any parallel in the Buddhist monastic code, known in the Theravāda scriptural language of Pāli as the Vinaya, and in the Dialogues of the Buddha, known as the Suttas. Areas to be explored include obedience to the teaching of the founders and their monastic rules, the process of reception into the monastic community, and the roles of preceptors, ministers, and spiritual guides. (shrink)

Cet article traite d'un point de vue historique de la résurrection du Christ et de l'origine du Christianisme. Comment la théologie devient histoire, puis évènement, c'est ce que nous montre l'A.

In a recent work, Popper claims to have solved the problem of induction. In this paper I argue that Popper fails both to solve the problem, and to formulate the problem properly. I argue, however, that there are aspects of Popper's approach which, when strengthened and developed, do provide a solution to at least an important part of the problem of induction, along somewhat Popperian lines. This proposed solution requires, and leads to, a new theory of the role of simplicity (...) in science, which may have helpful implications for science itself, thus actually stimulating scientific progress. (shrink)

The theory of the economics of research played a central role in the analysis of scientific method of Charles Sanders Peirce. The present paper describes Peirce's project as he saw it and then puts its machinery to work in an analysis of current issues in the philosophy of science. The aim is to show that, even apart from their historical interest, Peirce's ideas on this subject have a substantial systematic interest.

Commentary on Bergstrom and Rosvall, ‘The transmission sense of information’, Biology and Philosophy. In response to worries that uses of the concept of information in biology are metaphorical or insubstantial, Bergstrom and Rosvall have identified a sense in which DNA transmits information down the generations. Their ‘transmission view of information’ is founded on a claim about DNA’s teleofunction. Bergstrom and Rosvall see their transmission view of information as a rival to semantic accounts. This commentary argues that it is complementary. The (...) idea that DNA is transmitting information down the generations only makes sense if it is carrying a message, that is to say if it has semantic content. (shrink)

In the target article, Christie, Brusse, et al. argue that selected effect functions do not, in general, explain why a trait exists in a population and, therefore, theories of representational content should not rely on selected effect functions. This response focuses on the claim about functions-for-representation. The role of evolutionary functions in a theory of content is to pick out outcomes that have been systematically stabilized by natural selection. Correctness conditions are conditions involved in explaining how that happened. Selected effect (...) functions can play that role in the complex equilibria that Christie, Brusse, et al. identify. Non-equilibrium cases are also discussed. (shrink)

A number of authors have noted that vagueness engenders degrees of belief, but that these degrees of belief do not behave like subjective probabilities. So should we countenance two different kinds of degree of belief: the kind arising from vagueness, and the familiar kind arising from uncertainty, which obey the laws of probability? I argue that we cannot coherently countenance two different kinds of degree of belief. Instead, I present a framework in which there is a single notion of degree (...) of belief, which in certain circumstances behaves like a subjective probability assignment and in other circumstances does not. The core idea is that one’s degree of belief in a proposition P is one’s expectation of P’s degree of truth. (shrink)

Computational models will play an important role in our understanding of human higher‐order cognition. How can a model's contribution to this goal be evaluated? This article argues that three important aspects of a model of higher‐order cognition to evaluate are (a) its ability to reason, solve problems, converse, and learn as well as people do; (b) the breadth of situations in which it can do so; and (c) the parsimony of the mechanisms it posits. This article argues that fits of (...) models to quantitative experimental data, although valuable for other reasons, do not address these criteria. Further, using analogies with other sciences, the history of cognitive science, and examples from modern‐day research programs, this article identifies five activities that have been demonstrated to play an important role in our understanding of human higher‐order cognition. These include modeling within a cognitive architecture, conducting artificial intelligence research, measuring and expanding a model's ability, finding mappings between the structure of different domains, and attempting to explain multiple phenomena within a single model. (shrink)

Within the last decade or so several philosophers have argued against handgun prohibition on the ground that it violates the right to self-defense. However, even these philosophers grant that the right to own handguns is not absolute and could be overridden if doing so would bring about an enormous social good. Analysis of intra-United States empirical data cited by gun rights advocates indicates that guns do not make us safer, while international data lends powerful support to the thesis that guns (...) do indeed increase homicide. If handguns do not make us safer, then appealing to the right to self-defense as an objection to prohibition is moot. Prohibition neither violates the right to self-defense nor sacrifices anyone’s interests for the common good, since it makes each person less likely to be murderedthan the current permissive handgun laws. Moreover, we also must take into account the right to life of victims of handgun crimes made possible by liberal handgun laws. Consequently, invoking the right to self-defense does not provide any sound reason against handgun prohibition over and above familiar utilitarian objections, which are themselves refuted by the empirical evidence. (shrink)

From Fine and Kamp in the 70’s—through Osherson and Smith in the 80’s, Williamson, Kamp and Partee in the 90’s and Keefe in the 00’s—up to Sauerland in the present decade, the objection continues to be run that fuzzy logic based theories of vagueness are incompatible with ordinary usage of compound propositions in the presence of borderline cases. These arguments against fuzzy theories have been rebutted several times but evidently not put to rest. I attempt to do so in this (...) paper. (shrink)

This volume collects Wolterstorff's essays on the philosophy of religion written over the last thirty-five years.

"I began to ask myself whether there might be found a single argument which would require no other for its proof than itself alone, and would suffice to demonstrate that God truly exists." - St. Anselm.

This volume brings together mostly previously unpublished studies by prominent historians, classicists, and philosophers on the roles and effects of religion in Socratic philosophy and on the trial of Socrates. Among the contributors are Thomas C. Brickhouse, Asli Gocer, Richard Kraut, Mark L. McPherran, Robert C. T. Parker, C. D. C. Reeve, Nicholas D. Smith, Gregory Vlastos, Stephen A. White, and Paul B. Woodruff.

An examination of philosophical realism from the standpoint of pragmatic epistemology, this book addresses the core idea of Rescher's work in epistemology: that functional and pragmatic concerns exert a controlling influence on the conduct ...

The paper contrasts two approaches to the analysis of hope: one that takes its departure from a view broadly shared by Hobbes, Locke and Hume, another that fits better with Aquinas's definition of hope. The former relies heavily on a sharp distinction between the cognitive and conative aspects of hope. It is argued that while this approach provides a valuable source of insights, its focus is too narrow and it rests on a problematic rationalistic psychology. The argument is supported by (...) a discussion of hope understood as a stance and by a consideration of the phenomenological contrast between expectation and anticipation. The paper concludes with some reflections on the relation between hope and illusion and the idea of responsible hope. (shrink)

While Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) have been shown to be effective for a range of patient populations and outcomes, a question remains as to the role of common therapeutic factors, as opposed to the specific effects of mindfulness practice, in contributing to patient improvements. This project used a mixed-method design to investigate the contribution of specific (mindfulness practice-related) and common (instructor and group related) therapeutic factors to client improvements within an MBI. Participants with mild-severe depression (N= 104; 73% female,Mage = 40.28) (...) participated in an 8-week MBI. Specific therapeutic factors (formal out-of-class meditation minutes and informal mindfulness practice frequency) and social common factors (instructor and group ratings) were entered into multilevel growth curve models to predict changes in depression, anxiety, stress, and mindfulness at six timepoints from baseline to 3-month follow-up. Qualitative interviews with participants provided rich descriptions of how instructor and group related factors played a role in therapeutic trajectories. Findings indicated that instructor ratings predicted changes in depression and stress, group ratings predicted changes in stress and self-reported mindfulness, and formal meditation predicted changes in anxiety and stress, while informal mindfulness practice did not predict client improvements. Social common factors were stronger predictors of improvements in depression, stress, and self-reported mindfulness than specific mindfulness practice-related factors. Qualitative data supported the importance of relationships with instructor and group members, involving bonding, expressing feelings, and instilling hope. Our findings dispel the myth that MBI outcomes are exclusively the result of mindfulness meditation practice, and suggest that social common factors may account for much of the effects of these interventions. Further research on meditation should take into consideration the effects of social context and other common therapeutic factors. (shrink)

Anna Smajdor and Joona Räsänen argue that we have good reason to classify pregnancy as a disease. They discuss five accounts of disease and argue that each account either implies that pregnancy is a disease or if it does not, it faces problems. This strategy allows Smajdor and Räsänen to avoid articulating their own account of disease. Consequently, they cannot establish that pregnancyisa disease, only that plausible accounts of disease suggest this. Some readers will dismiss Smajdor and Räsänen’s claims as (...) counterintuitive. By analogy, if a mathematical proof concludes ‘2+2=5’, readers will know—without investigation—that an error occurred. Rather than dismiss Smajdor and Räsänen’s work, however, the easiest way to undermine their argument is to describe at least one plausible account of disease that (1) excludes pregnancy and (2) avoids the problems they raise for it. This is our strategy. We focus on dysfunction accounts of disease. After outlining Smajdor and Räsänen’s main arguments against dysfunction accounts, we explain why pregnancy is not a disease on these accounts. Next, we defend dysfunction accounts against the three problems that Smajdor and Räsänen raise. If successful, then contra Smajdor and Räsänen, at least one plausible account of disease does not imply that pregnancy is a disease. We suspect that defenders of other accounts can respond similarly. Yet, we note that insofar as dysfunction accounts align with the commonsense intuition that pregnancy is not a disease, this, all else being equal, seems like a point in their favour. (shrink)